Tucson Library Comic Book Sale

This Saturday, the Friends of the Pima County Public Library will be selling about 30,000 comic books, most of which will priced at 50 cents each. Full details can be found here.

There's something interesting there about the source of the donation coming from a comic book shop that had the comics in storage for the past few years. I can't quite succinctly verbalize it at the moment, but consider:

Back issue sales in most retail comic shops has been trending downwards, thanks in part to online sales and auction sites.

The value of back issue comics has been trending downwards, thanks to increased reprint output (in the form of TPB and hardcover collections) from publishers.

The economy, as a whole, is worse off than it was a year ago.

Public library usage has gone up, but library budgets have gone down.

One possible implication of the large-scale donation is that the tax write-off is worth more to the retailer than trying and/or not being able to sell the individual issues.

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4
comments:

It´s a good thing donate for support programs. Yeah now can be more space for new comics-books. I think that tpb and essentials do that old market comics down a little but ever be people to like issue for issue and not tpb.

The cover of Fantastic Four remind me a good comic.

I like to question a thing about FFplaza.com:

[I send e-mail kleefeld@one.net but i receive a email with a error]

I am a big fan of Fantastic Four, for me is the comic-book and enjoy a lot.

I read your page and it´s very complete: articles, biographies, interviews.... the articles are very good. The most complete and the best page.

But now a few months ago can´t acces of the page and the search in internet don´t run.

The page was cancelled? You move the page to another domain, ring, website?

Please return, the page was amazing.

Very thanks, Kleefeld.

PD: What do you think about FF Millar? Is good ideas but lost a little in comic-book. The descomprensive storytelling is inside.

I'm glad you enjoyed FFPlaza.com but it is officially dead now. I wasn't enjoying the FF much during Civil War and I thought Millar was doing a terrible job with the characterizations. Combined with some personal issues I was dealing with at the same time, I could not find the motivation to continue the site. I stopped updating it and only left it online because I had already pre-paid for my web hosting services. Once that expired, I let the site go entirely.

Frankly, I don't like where Marvel has taken its characters the past few years, and I would rather put my energies (and money!) into something I still enjoy.

I am very glad that you enjoyed the site, but I won't be bringing it back any time soon.

@Jeff

I have a cousin that lives in Tucson; next time I talk to him, I'll ask how it went and whether or not his wallet has forgiven him.

The good and bad about comics is that it's all fairly cyclical. FF during the Civil War crossover felt pretty shoehorned into the whole mess - Reed was out of character, the Thing...left for France (grumble), etc. But then we had McDuffie's run, which was just brilliant.

Millar might not be for everyone, but I think he's at least tried to expand on the mythos a bit. I, for one, never though we'd see Alyssa Moy again, let alone could I imagine I would actually be able to stand her. So, yeah...the FF's had its ups and downs lately. But that's the story of its publication history, I'd wager.

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About Me

Sean Kleefeld is an independent researcher whose work has been used by the likes Marvel Entertainment, Titan Books and 20th Century Fox. He writes the ongoing “Incidental Iconography” column for The Jack Kirby Collectorand “Kleefeld on Webcomics” column for MTV Geek. He’s also contributed to Alter Ego, Back Issue and Comic Book Resources. Kleefeld’s 2009 book, Comic Book Fanthropology, addresses the questions of who and what comic fans are. He blogs daily at KleefeldOnComics.com.